Cognitive reflection correlates with behavior on Twitter
Name
s41467-020-20043-0.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
876.57 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
87680d4f70f9c2dc9c28698f199461cb
Author(s)
Mosleh, Mohsen
Pennycook, Gordon
Arechar, Antonio A
Rand, David G
Date Issued
2021
Journal
Nature Communications
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Mosleh, Mohsen, Pennycook, Gordon, Arechar, Antonio A and Rand, David G. 2021. "Cognitive reflection correlates with behavior on Twitter." Nature Communications, 12 (1).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
We investigate the relationship between individual differences in cognitive reflection and behavior on the social media platform Twitter, using a convenience sample of N = 1,901 individuals from Prolific. We find that people who score higher on the Cognitive Reflection Test—a widely used measure of reflective thinking—were more discerning in their social media use, as evidenced by the types and number of accounts followed, and by the reliability of the news sources they shared. Furthermore, a network analysis indicates that the phenomenon of echo chambers, in which discourse is more likely with like-minded others, is not limited to politics: people who scored lower in cognitive reflection tended to follow a set of accounts which are avoided by people who scored higher in cognitive reflection. Our results help to illuminate the drivers of behavior on social media platforms and challenge intuitionist notions that reflective thinking is unimportant for everyday judgment and decision-making.
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Data, Systems, and Society
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/S41467-020-20043-0
